Method for sending multi-media messages with customized audio

ABSTRACT

A system and method of creating a customized multi-media message to a recipient is disclosed. The multi-media message is created by a sender and contains an animated entity that delivers an audible message. The sender chooses the animated entity from a plurality of animated entities. The system receives a text message from the sender and receives a sender audio message associated with the text message. The sender audio message is associated with the chosen animated entity to create the multi-media message. The multi-media message is delivered by the animated entity using as the voice the sender audio message wherein the mouth movements of the animated entity conform to the sender audio message.

PRIORITY APPLICATION

The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 11/679,905, filed Feb. 28, 2007, which is a continuation ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/003,094, filed Nov. 2, 2001, nowU.S. Pat. No. 7,203,648, issued Apr. 10, 2007, which claims the benefitof provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 60/245,521, filed Nov. 3,2000. The contents of the above-mentioned applications are herebyincorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is related to the following U.S. patentapplications: Ser. No. 10/003,091 entitled “System and Method forReceiving Multi-Media Messages”; Ser. No. 10/003,350 entitled “Systemand Method for Sending Multi-Media Messages Using Emoticons”; Ser. No.10/003,093, entitled “System and Method for Sending Multi-Media MessagesUsing Customizable Background Images”; Ser. No. 10/003,092 entitled“System and Method of Customizing Animated Entities for Use in aMulti-Media Communication Application”; Ser. No. 09/999,526 entitled“System and Method of Controlling Sound in a Multi-Media CommunicationApplication”; Ser. No. 09/999,525 entitled “System and Method ofMarketing Using a Multi-Media Communication System”; and Ser. No.09/999,505 entitled “System and Method of Providing Multi-CulturalMulti-Media Messages.” These applications were filed concurrently withU.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/003,094 are commonly assigned andare hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to multi-media messages and morespecifically to a system and method of customizing the audio portion ofa multi-media message created by a sender.

2. Discussion of Related Art

There is a growing popularity for text-to-speech (“TTS”) enabled systemsthat combine voice with a “talking head” or a computer-generated facethat literally speaks to a person. Such systems improve user experiencewith a computer system by personalizing the exchange of information.Systems for converting text into speech are known in the art. Forexample, U.S. Pat. No. 6,173,263 B1 to Alistair Conkie, assigned to theassignee of the present invention, discloses a system and method ofperforming concatenative speech synthesis. The contents of this patentare incorporated herein by reference.

One example associated with the creation and delivery of e-mails using aTTS system is LifeFX™'s Facemail™. FIG. 1 illustrates how a sendercreates a message using the LifeFX™ system. A window 10 presents fieldsfor inserting the sender's e-mail address 12 and the recipient's e-mailaddress 14. Standard features such as control buttons 16 for previewingand delivering the multi-media message are provided. A standard subjectline is also provided 18. The sender chooses from a variety of faces 20to deliver the message. The currently chosen face 22 appears in thewindow 10 as well. The sender inserts the message text as with atraditional e-mail in a text area 24 and a box 26 below the text areagives illustrations of some of the available emoticons, explainedfurther below.

This system enables a sender to write an e-mail and choose a talkinghead or “face” to deliver the e-mail. The recipient of the e-mail needsto download special TTS software in order to enable the “face” todeliver the message. The downloaded software converts the typewrittene-mail from the e-mail sender into audible words, and synchronizes thehead and mouth movements of the talking head to match the audibly spokenwords. Various algorithms and software may be used to provide the TTSfunction as well as the synchronization of the speech with the talkinghead. For example, the article, “Photo-realistic Talking-heads FromImage Samples,” by E. Cosatto and H. P. Graf, IEEE Transactions onMultimedia, September 2000, Vol. 2, Issue 3, pages 152-163, describes asystem for creating a realistic model of a head that can be animated andlip-synched from phonetic transcripts of text. The contents of thisarticle are incorporated herein by reference. Such systems, whencombined with TTS synthesizers, generate video animations of talkingheads that resemble people. One drawback of related systems is that thesynthesized voice bears no resemblance to the sender voice.

The LifeFX™ system presents the user with a plurality of faces 20 fromwhich to choose. Once a face is chosen, the e-mail sender composes ane-mail message. Within the e-mail, the sender inserts features toincrease the emotion showed by the computer-generated face when thee-mail is “read” to the e-mail recipient. For example, the followingwill result in the message being read with a smile at the end: “Hi, howare you today? :-)”. These indicators of emotion are called “emoticons”and may include such features as: :-((frown); -o (wow); :-x (kiss); and;-) (wink). The e-mail sender will type in these symbols which aretranslated by the system into the emotions. Therefore, after composing amessage, inserting emoticons, and choosing a face, the sender sends themessage. The recipiant will get an e-mail with a notification that he orshe has received a facemail and that they will need to download a playerto hear the message.

The LifeFX™ system presents its emoticons when delivering the message ina particular way. For example, when an emoticon such as a smile isinserted in the sentence “Hi, Jonathon, :-) how are you today?” the“talking head” 22 speaks the words “Hi, Jonathan” and then stops talkingand begins the smiling operation. After finishing the smile, the talkinghead completes the sentence “how are you today?”

The LifeFX™ system only enables the recipient to hear the message afterdownloading the appropriate software. There are several disadvantages todelivering multi-media messages in this manner. Such software requires alarge amount of disc space and the recipient may not desire to utilizehis or her space with the necessary software. Further, with virusesprevalent on the Internet, many people are naturally reluctant todownload software when they are unfamiliar with its source.

FIG. 2 illustrates a received Facemail™ 40. The chosen talking head 22delivers the message. Buttons such as “say again” 42, “new” 44,“forward” 26, “reply” 48, “reply all” 50, and “show text” 52 enable therecipient to control to some degree how the message is received. Buttons42, 44, 46, 48 and 50 are commonly used button features for controllingmessages. Button 52 allows the user to read the text of the message.When button 52 is clicked, the text of the message is shown in a windowillustrated in FIG. 3. A separate window 54 pops up typically over thetalking head 22 with the text.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

What is needed in the art is a system and method to enable more creativeand desirable control to a sender of a multi-media message. The presentinvention addresses the deficiencies in the prior art and focuses onsystems and methods related to sender control of the creation ofanimated multi-media messages. Specifically, the present inventionrelates to enabling the sender to create multi-media messages with morecontrol over the voice used to deliver the message. For example, thesender may record an audio message in his or her own voice and use thatvoice to deliver the message.

The present invention relates to a method of delivering a multi-mediamessage to a recipient, the multi-media message being created by asender and for delivery by an animated entity. The method comprisesrecording an audio message from the sender, receiving a choice of one ofa plurality of animated entities to deliver the message, conforming theaudio message to movements associated with the animated entity to createa multi-media message, and delivering the multi-media message to therecipient with the animated entity speaking the recorded audio messagefrom the sender.

According to an aspect of the invention, conforming the audio message tomovements associated with the animated entity may be accomplished inseveral ways. For example, an automatic speech recognition (ASR) systemmay convert the audio message into text for the sender to review. Inthis way, the movements of the animated entity may be created accordingto the text version of the message with the audio version being “spoken”simultaneously when the message is delivered to the recipient. Inanother version of the invention, the sender first submits a textversion of the message via typing or the like and then reads the typedmessage to create an audio version of the message. When the multi-mediamessage is delivered to the recipient, the audio portion of themulti-media message becomes the actual voice of the sender. The sendermay also insert emoticons into the text to increase the effect andvariety of the multi-media message with the sender's voice as the audioportion of the message.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing advantages of the present invention will be apparent fromthe following detailed description of several embodiments of theinvention with reference to the corresponding accompanying drawings, ofwhich:

FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art window for creating a multi-mediamessage;

FIG. 2 illustrates a prior art window viewed by a recipient of amulti-media message;

FIG. 3 illustrates a prior art window in response to a recipient of amulti-media message clicking on a “show text” button;

FIG. 4( a) illustrates the basic architecture of the system according toan embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4( b) illustrates a low-bandwidth version of the system shown inFIG. 4( a);

FIG. 5 shows example architecture for delivering the multi-mediamessage;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example multi-media message creation window with aconfiguration to enable a sender to choose options for creating amulti-media message;

FIG. 7 illustrates an example method of providing a sender with anoption to record an audio message to be delivered with an animatedentity in a multi-media message; and

FIG. 8 illustrates an example method of providing a synthesized voicethat is not the sender's voice but that includes sender voicecharacteristics.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention may be best understood with reference to theaccompanying drawings and description herein. The basic system designsupporting the various embodiments of the invention is first disclosed.A system comprises a TTS and an animation server to provide amulti-media message service over the Internet wherein a sender cancreate a multi-media message presentation delivered audibly by ananimated entity.

FIG. 4( a) illustrates a high-bandwidth architecture 60 associated withthe embodiments of the invention. The system 60 delivers a hyper-textmark-up language (HTML) page through the Internet 62 (connected to a webserver, not shown but embodied in the Internet 62) to a clientapplication 64. The HTML page (shown by way of example in FIG. 6)enables the sender to create a multi-media message. The clientapplication may be, for example, a web browser such as Microsoft'sInternet Explorer®. Other client applications include e-mail and instantmessaging clients. The sender creates the multi-media message using theHTML page.

The web server receives the composed multi-media message, which includesseveral components that are additional to a regular e-mail or instantmessage. For example, a multi-media message includes a designation of ananimated entity for audibly delivering the message and emoticons thatadd emotional elements to the animated entity during the delivery of themessage. The HTML page delivered to the client terminal enables thesender to manipulate various buttons and inputs to create themulti-media message.

Once the sender finishes creating the multi-media message and sends themessage, the Internet 62 transmits the message text with emoticons andother chosen parameters to a text-to-speech (TTS) server 66 thatcommunicates with an animation or face server 68 to compute andsynchronize the multi-media message. The transmission of thetext-to-speech data may be accomplished using such methods as thosedisclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,173,250 B1 to Kenneth Jong, assigned to theassignee of the present invention. The contents of this patent areincorporated herein by reference.

The animation server 68 receives phonemes associated with the sendermessage and interpreted by the TTS server 66, including the text of thesubject line and other text such as the name of the sender, as well asother defined parameters or data. The animation server 68 processes thereceived phonemes, message text, emoticons and any other providedparameters such as background images or audio and creates an animatedmessage that matches the audio and the emoticons. An exemplary methodfor producing the animated entity is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No.5,995,119 to Cosatto et al. (“Cosatto et al.”). The Cosatto et al.patent is assigned to the assignee of the present invention and itscontents are incorporated herein by reference. Cosatto et al. disclose asystem and method of generating animated characters that can “speak” or“talk” received text messages. Another reference for information ongenerating animated sequences of animated entities is found in U.S. Pat.No. 6,122,177 to Cosatto et al. (“Cosatto et al. II”). The contents ofCosatto et al. II are incorporated herein by reference as well.

The system 60 encodes the audio and video portions of the multi-mediamessage for streaming through a streaming audio/video server 70. In ahigh-bandwidth version of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 4( a),the server 70 streams the multi-media message to the streaming client 72over the Internet 62. One of ordinary skill in the art will understandand be cognizant of a variety of TTS servers and TTS technologies thatmay be optimally used for converting the text to speech. The particularimplementation of TTS technologies is not relevant to the presentinvention. One of ordinary skill in the art will understand and becognizant of a variety of animation servers and animation technologiesthat may be optimally used for converting phonemes and emoticons intotalking entities, preferably faces. The particular implementation ofanimation technologies is not relevant to the present invention.

FIG. 4( b) illustrates a low-bandwidth system 61 of the presentinvention. In this variation, the animation server 68 produces animationparameters that are synchronized with the audio produced from the TTSserver 66. The audio and animation parameters are encoded andtransmitted by the streaming server 74 over a lower bandwidth connectionover the Internet 62. The streaming client 76 in this aspect of theinvention differs from the streaming client 72 of FIG. 4( a) in thatclient 76 includes rendering software for rendering the animation on theclient device using the streamed animation parameters provided from thestreaming server 74. Furthermore, the client includes a TTS synthesizerthat synthesizes the audio. In this manner, the systems disclosed inFIGS. 4( a) and 4(b) provide both a high-bandwidth and a low-bandwidthoption for all users.

A further variation of the invention applies when the client deviceincludes the animation or rendering software. In this case, the clientdevice 72, 76 can receive a multi-media message e-mail, with the messagedeclared as a specific multipurpose Internet mail extension (MIME) type,and render the animation locally without requiring access to a centralserver or streaming server 70, 74. In one aspect of the invention, therendering software includes a TTS synthesizer with the usable voices. Inthis case, the recipient device 72, 76 receives the text (very littledata) and the face model (several kb), unless it is already stored in acache at the receiver device 72, 76. If the receiver device 72, 76 isrequested to synthesize a voice different from the ones available at itsTTS synthesizer, the server 74 downloads the new voice.

High quality voices typically require several megabytes of disk space.Therefore, if the voice is stored on a streaming server 74, in order toavoid the delay of the huge download, the server 74 uses a TTSsynthesizer to create the audio. Then, the server 74 streams the audioand related markup information such as phonemes, stress,word-boundaries, bookmarks with emoticons, and related timestamps to therecipient. The recipient device 76 locally renders the face model usingthe face model and the markup information and synchronously plays theaudio streamed from the server.

When the recipient receives an e-mail message associated with themulti-media message, the message is received on a client device 71 suchas that shown in FIG. 5. FIG. 5 illustrates a different view of system60. The client device may be any one of a desktop, laptop computer, awireless device such as a cell phone, 3Com's Palmpilot® or personal dataassistant and the like. The particular arrangement of the client device71 is unimportant to the present invention. The multi-media message maybe delivered over the Internet, via a wireless communication system suchas a cellular communication system or via a satellite communicationsystem.

The multi-media message delivery mechanism is also not limited to ane-mail system. For example, other popular forms of communication includeinstant messaging, bulletin boards, I Seek You (ICQ) and other messagingservices. Instant messaging and the like differ from regular e-mail inthat its primary focus is immediate end-user delivery. In this sense,the sender and recipient essentially become interchangeable because themessages are communicated back and forth in real time. Presenceinformation for a user with an open session to a well-known multi-usersystem enables friends and colleagues to instantly communicate messagesback and forth. Those of skill in the art know various architectures forsimple instant messaging and presence awareness/notification. Since theparticular embodiment of the instant message, bulletin board, or I SeekYou (ICQ) or other messaging service is not relevant to the generalprinciples of the present invention, no further details are providedhere. Those of skill in the art will understand and be able to apply theprinciples disclosed herein to the particular communication application.Although the best mode and preferred embodiment of the invention relatesto the e-mail context, the multi-media messages may be created anddelivered via any messaging context.

For instant messaging, client sessions are established using a multicastgroup (more than 2 participants) or unicast (2 participants). As part ofthe session description, each participant specifies the animated entityrepresenting him. Each participant loads the animated entity of theother participants. When a participant sends a message as described forthe e-mail application, this message is sent to a central server thatanimates the entity for the other participants to view or streamsappropriate parameters (audio/animation parameters or audio/video ortext/animation parameters or just text) to the participants that theirclient software uses to render the animated entity.

Further as shown in FIG. 5, when a client device 71 receives a requestfrom the recipient to view a multi-media message, the client device 71sends a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) message to the web server 63.As a response, the web server sends a message with an appropriate MIMEtype pointing to the server 70 at which point the server 70 streams themulti-media message to the client terminal for viewing and listening.This operation is well known to those of skill in the art.

In an alternate aspect of the invention, the client device 71 storespreviously downloaded specific rendering software for deliveringmulti-media messages. As discussed above, LifeFX™ requires the recipientto download its client software before the recipient may view themessage. Therefore, some of the functionality of the present inventionis applied in the context of the client terminal 71 containing thenecessary software for delivering the multi-media message. In this case,the animation server 68 and TTS server 66 create and synchronize themulti-media message for delivery. The multi-media message is thentransmitted, preferably via e-mail, to the recipient. When the recipientopens the e-mail, an animated entity shown in the message deliverywindow delivers the message. The local client software runs to locallydeliver the message using the animated entity.

Many web-based applications require client devices to download softwareon their machines, such as with the LifeFX™ system. As mentioned above,problems exist with this requirement since customers in general arereluctant and rightfully suspicious about downloading software over theInternet because of the well-known security problems such as viruscontamination, trojan horses, zombies, etc. New software installationsoften cause problems with the existing software or hardware on theclient device. Further, many users do not have the expertise to run theinstallation process if it gets even slightly complicated e.g., askingabout system properties, directories, etc. Further, downloading andinstalling software takes time. These negative considerations mayprevent hesitant users from downloading the software and using theservice.

Some Java-based applications are proposed as a solution for theabove-mentioned problems but these are more restrictive due to securityprecautions and can't be used to implement all applications and there isno unified Java implementation. Therefore, users need to configure theirbrowsers to allow Java-based program execution. As with the problemsdiscussed above, a time-consuming download of the Java executable foreach use by users who do not know if they really need or like to use thenew application may prevent users from bothering with the Java-basedsoftware.

Accordingly, an aspect of the present invention includes using streamingvideo to demonstrate the use of a new software application. Enabling theuser to preview the use of a new software application solves theabove-mentioned these problems for many applications. Currently, almostall client machines have a streaming video client such as Microsoft'sMediaplayer® or Real Player®. If not, such applications can bedownloaded and configured with confidence. Note that the user needs todo this only once. These streaming video receivers can be used toreceive and playback video on the client's machine.

According to this aspect of the present invention, shown by way ofexample in FIG. 5, a user may wish to preview a multi-media messagebefore downloading rendering software on the client device 71. If suchis the case, the user enters into a dialogue with the streaming server70 and requests a preview or demonstration of the capabilities of theapplication if the rendering software were downloaded. The streamingserver 70 transmits to the client device 71 a multi-media messageshowing dynamic screen shots of the application as if it is running onthe user's machine. As an example, if the new application would have thecapability to show a three-dimensional view of a room based on vectorgraphics, the streaming video displays the three-dimensional output ofthe application on the user's monitor as video. Most existing playersallow the users to control the video playback by clicking on buttons orthe like on an HTML page. This provides an interactive feeling for theuser if needed without loading any new or suspicious software.

Therefore, an aspect of the present invention enables the user, beforedownloading rendering software for presenting multi-media messages usingan animated entity, to request a preview of the multi-media messagestreamed to the client as a video and presented on a player such as theMicrosoft Mediaplayer® or Real Player®. If the user so desires, he orshe can then download the rendering software for enjoying the receptionof multi-media messages.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a template for the sender to use to create amulti-media message. A message-creation window 80 includes basice-mail-related features such as fields for inserting a sender name 82and sender e-mail address 84. A subject line 86 and recipient addressfield 88 are also provided. The sender enters the text of the messagewithin a standard text field 92. Various animated entities 94 areavailable from which the sender may choose 90 for delivering themessage. Typically the animated entities are faces as shown in FIG. 6,but they may be any entity such as an animal, car, tree, robot, oranything that may be animated.

The sender may also insert emoticons 103 into the text of the message.The system includes predefined emoticons 96, such as “:-)” for a smile,“::-)” for a head nod, “*w*” for an eye wink, and so forth. Thepredefined emoticons are represented either as icons or as text, such as“;-)”. As shown in FIG. 6, the window 80 includes a sample group ofemoticon icons 96. The sender inserts an emoticon into a text message atthe location of the cursor 102 by clicking on one of the emoticon icons100. The sender may also type in the desired emoticon as text. Emoticonicons 96 save the sender from needing to type three keys, such as “:”and “-” and “)” for a smile. The icons 96 may be either a picture of,say, a winking eye or a icon representation of the characters “;-)” 100,or other information indicating to the sender that clicking on thatemoticon icon will insert the associated emotion 103 into the text atthe location of the cursor 102.

Once the sender composes the text of the message, chooses an animatedentity 94, and inserts the desired emoticons 103, he or she generatesthe multi-media message by clicking on the generate message button 98.The animation server 68 creates an animated video of the selectedanimated entity 94 for audibly delivering the message. The TTS server 66converts the text to speech as mentioned above. Emoticons 103 in themessage are translated into their corresponding facial expressions suchas smiles and nods. The position of an emoticon 103 in the textdetermines when the facial expression is executed during delivery of themessage.

Execution of a particular expression preferably occurs before thespecific location of the emoticon in the text. This is in contrast tothe LifeFX™ system, discussed above, in which the execution of the smileemoticon in the text “Hello, Jonathan :-) how are you?” starts and endsbetween the words “Jonathan” and “how”. In the present invention, theexpression of the emoticon begins a predefined number of words or apredefined time before the emoticon's location in the text. Furthermore,the end of the expressions of an emoticon may be a predefined number ofwords after the location of the emoticon in the text or a predeterminedamount of time after the location of the emoticon.

For example, according to an aspect of the present invention, the smilein the sentence “Hello, Jonathan :-) how are you?” will begin after theword “Hello” and continue through the word “how” or even through theentire sentence. The animated entity in this case will be smiling whiledelivering most of the message—which is more natural for the recipientthan having the animated entity pause while executing an expression.

Furthermore, the starting and stopping points for executing expressionswill vary depending on the expression. For example, a wink typicallytakes a very short amount of time to perform whereas a smile may lastlonger. Therefore, the starting and stopping points for a wink may bedefined in terms of 0.1 seconds before its location in the text to 0.5seconds after the location of the wink emoticon in the text. Incontrast, the smile emoticon's starting, stopping, and durationparameters may be defined in terms of the words surrounding theemoticons.

According to another aspect of the invention, the audio portion of theanimated multi-media message may not be drawn from TTS server 66 butfrom an audio recording from the sender. An example of this aspect ofthe invention is illustrated in FIG. 7. An exemplary method of creatingand delivering a multi-media message comprises receiving a text messagefrom the sender (120) and recording an audio message from the sender(122). Steps 120 and 122 may be performed in any order. If step 120 isaccomplished first, then optimally the audio message corresponds to thetext because the sender reads the typed message. The animation server 68and the TTS server 66 coordinate the timing of the mouth movements ofthe selected animated entity (124) as it delivers the multi-mediamessage (128). If the system first receives the sender audio messagebefore the text of the message, the system may interpret the messageusing automatic speech recognition techniques (ASR) and provide thesender a text version of the message for review and approval. Basicspeech recognition techniques are well known to those of skill in theart. The necessary software may reside on one of the servers shown inFIG. 4, such as the web server 63.

Having the sender's message converted to text for preview assures thatthe system correctly interpreted the audio message before conforming themovements of the animated entity to the audio message (126). Otherwise,an unnatural mouth movement by the animated entity in the multi-mediamessage may accompany the audio message from the sender and reduce theeffectiveness of the presentation. Therefore, if the audio message isreceived first, a text approval step is preferably performed bypresenting the sender with a text window with a message asking whetherthis is the correct interpretation of the message and for the sender toedit the message accordingly. Once the sender approves the message, thesystem delivers the multi-media message to the recipient (128).

The audio message is preferably recorded via a microphone associatedwith the client device 71. In one aspect of the invention, a button orother means (not shown in FIG. 6) is presented to the sender in thewindow 80 providing the sender with an option to record a message thatwill be the audio portion of the multi-media message. If the senderchooses this option, and the system receives that choice, then an audiomessage input dialogue proceeds to walk the sender through prompts forthe system to obtain and check the accuracy of an audio message fordelivery. Various examples of this process are discussed below.

Either before or after recording the audio message, the method furthercomprises receiving a choice of one of a plurality of animated entitiesto deliver the message (124). Preferably, the means by which the senderchooses an animated entity is through the sender manipulating buttons orcontrol elements such as a pull-down menu to choose the animated entity.The sender's choice is then received by the system for processing. Thereare a variety of different means that may be used to accomplishproviding the sender with a plurality of animated entities from which tochoose.

When a sender-recorded audio message is not used, as explained above,the TTS server 66 and animation server 68 coordinate to cause the mouthof the animated entity to move in a synchronized manner with the“speaking” of the message. In this manner, it appears as though theanimated entity is talking. When the sound delivered in the multi-mediamessage is the voice of the sender, then the mouth movements of theanimated entity must still be synchronized to make it appear as thoughthe animated entity is speaking the words. This is accomplished by timestamping the sender audio message, labeling the sender audio messagewith the sender text message using aligner software as it is used forTTS voice generation, and outputting the sender audio message with theappropriate video mouth movements for the animated entity. Cosatto etal. II disclose some of the details of how this may be done.Alternatively, software that detects mouth opening and closures from theaudio waveform may be used. (See Pengyu Hong, Zhen Wen, Thomas Huang,“Real-time Speech Driven Avatar with Constant Short Time Delay,”International Conference on Augmented, Virtual Environments and 3DImaging, Greece, 2001 for background information regarding how toaccomplish detecting mouth opening and closures from an audio waveform.)The multi-media message is then delivered to the recipient with theanimated entity speaking the recorded audio message from the sender(128).

Another variation of the present invention is illustrated in FIG. 8. Inthis case, the system presents the multi-media message using asynthesized voice that uses voice inflections and characteristics of thesender voice. To accomplish this, a method comprises receiving an audiorecording from the sender (140). As discussed above relative to FIG. 7,receiving the audio recording from the sender may occur before or afterthe sender types or reviews a text version of the message. Therefore,the sender may first type the text and then read the text associatedwith step 140, or the sender may record the audio message and thenreceive a text version through ASR means and review and approve thetext.

The next step involves parameterizing the audio recording (142). Thisstep comprises using an alignment program to segment the audio recordinginto phonemes and label the audio recording with the phonemes, duration,pitch, stress and other parameters. These parameters and the text arefed into a speech synthesizer that then synthesizes the speech using itsvoice with the parameters derived from the recorded voice (144). Theresulting synthesized voice in this example is not the voice of thesender but includes many of the characteristics of the sender voice,such as voice inflection, accent, pitch, rhythm, or a certain dialect.In this regard, the synthesized voice mimics the sender voice in one ormore of the parameters analyzed from the recorded audio. (Backgroundinformation regarding the technical details of how this may beaccomplished are found in Lee, K-S. and Cox, R. V., “TTS based very lowbit rate speech coder,” Proc. ICASSP '99, Vol. I, March 1999, pp.181-184.) In this manner, the synthesized voice will be more familiarand comfortable to the recipient and at least partially reflect thevoice of the sender.

Although the above description may contain specific details, they shouldnot be construed as limiting the claims in any way. Other configurationsof the described embodiments of the invention are part of the scope ofthis invention. For example, any electronic communication between peoplewhere an animated entity can deliver the message is contemplated. E-mailand instant messaging have been specifically mentioned above, but otherforms of communication are being developed such as broadband 3G and 4Gwireless technologies wherein animated entities as generally describedherein may apply. Accordingly, the appended claims and their legalequivalents should only define the invention, rather than any specificexamples given.

We claim:
 1. A method comprising: receiving, from a user, a selection ofa non-textual emoticon; inserting, via a processor, the non-textualemoticon into a multi-media message comprising text at a position in thetext selected by the user; receiving, from the user, a choice of one ofa plurality of animated entities, wherein the plurality of animatedentities is associated with the non-textual emoticon, to yield a chosenanimated entity; and delivering the multi-media instant message to arecipient device, wherein the chosen animated entity exhibits, on therecipient device, animations associated with the non-textual emoticonduring presentation of the text message at a timing associated with aposition of the non-textual emoticon in the text message, wherein theactions begin at a first point corresponding to a first predeterminedamount of time before the non-textual emoticon and end at a second pointcorresponding to a second predetermined amount of time after thenon-textual emoticon, and wherein the first predetermined amount of timeis based on non-emoticon words surrounding the non-textual emoticon, andthe second predetermined amount of time is based on the non-emoticonwords surrounding the non-textual emoticon.
 2. The method of claim 1,further comprising: delivering, via the multi-media instant message, arecorded audio message by the chosen animated entity from a sender. 3.The method of claim 2, further comprising: conforming the audio messageto characteristics of the chosen animated entity.
 4. The method of claim1, wherein the multi-media message is sent as one of an email, aninstant message, and a short messaging service message to the recipient.5. The method of claim 1, wherein the text of the multi-media message isgenerated by converting speech into text.
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein the multi-media message further comprises video.
 7. The methodof claim 6, the multi-media instant message is multicast to additionalrecipient devices.
 8. A system comprising: a processor; and acomputer-readable storage medium having instructions stored which, whenexecuted by the processor, cause the processor to perform operationscomprising: receiving, from a user, a selection of a non-textualemoticon; inserting, via a processor, the non-textual emoticon into amulti-media message comprising text at a position in the text selectedby the user; receiving, from the user, a choice of one of a plurality ofanimated entities, wherein the plurality of animated entities isassociated with the non-textual emoticon, to yield a chosen animatedentity; and delivering the multi-media instant message to a recipientdevice, wherein the chosen animated entity exhibits, on the recipientdevice, animations associated with the non-textual emoticon duringpresentation of the text message at a timing associated with a positionof the non-textual emoticon in the text message, wherein the actionsbegin at a first point corresponding to a first predetermined amount oftime before the non-textual emoticon and end at a second pointcorresponding to a second predetermined amount of time after thenon-textual emoticon, and wherein the first predetermined amount of timeis based on non-emoticon words surrounding the non-textual emoticon, andthe second predetermined amount of time is based on the non-emoticonwords surrounding the non-textual emoticon.
 9. The system of claim 8,the computer-readable storage medium having additional instructionswhich result in the operations further comprising: delivering, via themulti-media instant message, a recorded audio message by the chosenanimated entity from a sender.
 10. The system of claim 9, thecomputer-readable storage medium having additional instructions whichresult in the operations, further comprising: conforming the audiomessage to characteristics of the chosen animated entity.
 11. The systemof claim 8, wherein the multi-media message is sent as one of an email,an instant message, and a short messaging service message to therecipient.
 12. The system of claim 8, wherein the text of themulti-media message is generated by converting speech into text.
 13. Thesystem of claim 8, wherein the multi-media message further comprisesvideo.
 14. The system of claim 13, the multi-media instant message ismulticast to additional recipient devices.
 15. A computer-readablestorage device having instructions stored which, when executed by acomputing device, cause the computing device to perform operationscomprising: receiving, from a user, a selection of a non-textualemoticon; inserting, via a processor, the non-textual emoticon into amulti-media message comprising text at a position in the text selectedby the user; receiving, from the user, a choice of one of a plurality ofanimated entities, wherein the plurality of animated entities isassociated with the non-textual emoticon, to yield a chosen animatedentity; and delivering the multi-media instant message to a recipientdevice, wherein the chosen animated entity exhibits, on the recipientdevice, animations associated with the non-textual emoticon duringpresentation of the text message at a timing associated with a positionof the non-textual emoticon in the text message, wherein the actionsbegin at a first point corresponding to a first predetermined amount oftime before the non-textual emoticon and end at a second pointcorresponding to a second predetermined amount of time after thenon-textual emoticon, and wherein the first predetermined amount of timeis based on non-emoticon words surrounding the non-textual emoticon, andthe second predetermined amount of time is based on the non-emoticonwords surrounding the non-textual emoticon.
 16. The computer-readablestorage device of claim 15, the computer-readable storage device havingadditional instructions which result in the operations furthercomprising: delivering, via the multi-media instant message, a recordedaudio message by the chosen animated entity from a sender.
 17. Thecomputer-readable storage device of claim 16, the computer-readablestorage device having additional instructions which result in theoperations, further comprising: conforming the audio message tocharacteristics of the chosen animated entity.
 18. The computer-readablestorage device of claim 15, wherein the multi-media message is sent asone of an email, an instant message, and a short messaging servicemessage to the recipient.
 19. The computer-readable storage device ofclaim 15, wherein the text of the multi-media message is generated byconverting speech into text.
 20. The computer-readable storage device ofclaim 15, wherein the multi-media message further comprises video.